Emelry Sainshand
Birthday: April 8th
Sex: Female
Occupation: Ilian haruspex, lieutenant role
Likes: Weaving, solitary study, woodwinds, citrus, birds
Dislikes: Arrogant personalities, open spaces, the dark, cold foods, tea
Blood type: AE
Seen with: The other five members of her law ship’s crew
A young woman hailing from the more provincial regions of Ilion’s territory. Having completed her education at the legal academies of Saniasa, one of the wheel’s largest settlements, she is a new but nonetheless fully-fledged haruspex. As the primary enforcement body of the outer system, Ilion’s Office of Haruspicy is responsible for maintaining ethical, legal, and spiritual standards across the region.
Raised in a very small and insular town, as many of her countrymen are. Religious by necessity, but more superstitious than pious. Very invested in her choice of career, and not since childhood has she considered a life outside of it. Well-liked and sociable, but has few close friends and even fewer real confidants. Focused, persistent, and impatient, with a strong sense of charity underlying her demeanor
26 years of age and three feet, eight inches in height. Has the buzzed black hair, translucently pale skin, and violet eyes that most members of her species (homo dharmae) share. Large purple birthmark covering her left shoulderblade
Razina Savelyevna
Birthday: September 26th
Sex: Female
Occupation: Chief Ecosystemic Analyst, Savannah Staff
Likes: Summer, seaweed dishes, baking, field survey work, plasticraft, janitors
Dislikes: Micromanagement, unweighted zones, vinegar, chocolate, theater
Blood type: Ö
Seen with: Of the other senior staff, only Tacimarsa and Anyndelhataman, and then only rarely. Keeps to her own staff.
A career practical biologist who has spent a few decades living at Savannah. Central mastermind of Savannah’s ecosystem – while higher-level directors such as Tacimarsa or Coteshinoeleon have broad control over the primary species featured in the biosphere, an analyst’s role is to hack out the details of how those pieces fit together, and how many more pieces are needed. This often extends to any level of modifications; most habitats will result in the engineering of a few entirely novel species – from algae to apex predators – to “reconcile” the ecosystem into a shape that sustains itself.
Unlike the vast majority of Savannah’s staff, makes a point of taking semiyearly voyages back to Heath proper, always spending time on the way in Kozue: world’s largest city, nearly a billion in population, and seat of Heath Governances central Chanticleer. This comes at great expense, given the infrequency of liner patterns only allowing for routes aligning with favorably close astral configurations. She spends a lot of the time on the road and in hotels, more than anyone else on the staff.
Bettany John
Birthday: March 28th
Sex: Semifemale (Born with a condition common in neotene stock (due to side effects of their eponymous neoteny); sterility and the lack of a defined sex. This is relatively normal, and she was raised female since birth.)
Occupation: Ilian haruspex; prefect role
Likes: Wool, perfume, cardamom, beef, long baths, the upper hand, gardening
Dislikes: Weather, sports, insecurity, blind trust, unfamiliar bedrooms, the taste of water
Blood type: B
Seen with: Senior Savanni staff, the lawship crew, Henarl in particular
A solitary and cool young woman hailing from the midst of the wheel - her hometown is a small mining outpost past its prime, already having begun planning for the ghost-town process of relocation by the time she was a child. Dissatisfied with small-town life, she took one of the only routes Ilion provides out of the isolation it was partially founded upon: a career that travels.
Very detached from her own life in many ways; maintains a brisk and careless persona. The heart of a classical tsundere; a mind sharp enough to not take that fully seriously. A shamelessly driven social climber, enjoys the small luxuries and a modest, well-kempt interior life. Self-aware, optimistic, but deeply, fatally pragmatic.
Kali I
Birthday: Unrecorded, presumably summer 2643
Sex: Roan
Occupation: Scholar king
Blood Type: 23-C
Likes: Travelling, lantern carpentry, quiet nights, calligraphy, throat singing, fancy high-end vellum, urban design, lamb, culinary theory, claw gloves, bonsai
Dislikes: Water, sand, cold mornings, motion sickness, heavy clothing, beak carving, tardiness, overindulgence, naivete, bugs, chess, and pork.
Seen with: Aides (primarily Harka, an old friend, and Fili, a potential successor), the general population of Quay, other tengmu administrators
The proud leader of one of the largest tengmu communities that have taken root within the hull of Savannah. Self-styles eirself as royalty as a wry sort of theatricality; less a claim of genuine authority and more an I-can-get-away-with-this smugness. Is good-tempered and patient, forgiving and unfazeable – because e lives in eir own world of desperate duty, and doesn’t take bickering with those beneath em to be worth getting worked up about – just let em get back to eir books!
Injured as a nymph and left stunted and unable to fly well, e devoted eir life to the study of human culture and the improvement of the settlements e’s helped establish. Ruthlessly inquisitive, deeply ambitious and hopeful, cares less for the state of eir people than the course they are on – moving through life full-voicedly but as if always looking a hundred years into the future.
Harka
Birthday: Unrecorded, presumably summer 2643
Sex: Blue
Occupation: Errant
Blood Type: 14-X
Likes: Drinking, songs about drinking, rice, neat vests, the smell of laundry, landscape painting and exploration, keeping secrets, coffee, salmon, funerary rites, sunlight, and all animals
Dislikes: Stagnation and complacency, sitting still whatsoever, being misled or condescended to, strict personalities, Savannah staff, storms, display season, nymph language
Seen with: Kali’s inner circle, the crew of Umihotaru, contacts from Quarry
Something of a handyman, something of an ambassador, Harka is among the king’s oldest and closest friends, and works as a very independent right hand. One of Quay’s strongest fliers and brightest blues, since nymphood e has guarded and supported the king, making up for Kali’s disability. Not quite as sharp, but makes up for it in loyalty and passion. In recent years, has spent much of eir time at the distant end of Savannah, Quarry’s End, living with and studying the craft of Quay’s main and only friendly rival. Not a scholar, but a very good listener. Curious and good-humored, very patient until e has a reason not to be, and then swings to being easily frustrated and provoked. A true believer in the ideals of Quay; education, ambition, organization, expansion, and a simple but whole way of life. Has very conflicted feelings about Triactian culture, as well as a very incomplete view of it, but holds its tenets of personal biological self-determination as a very high virtue.
Rain Flower sel Lock Wave (cal Soft Fang; cal Pearl Wall)
Birthday: January 2nd
Sex: Silver male
Occupation: Courtier, receptor technician
Blood Type: B
Likes: Grudges (holding his own and admiring ones that others carry), alchemical theory, habitat design, every type of noodle ever invented, niche designer fashion, niche designer fruit, beaches, janitor pilots, artsy documentaries, foxes, pistachios, privacy.
Dislikes: Work, study, fiction, politics, micromanagement and disrespect, limits placed on potential, nostalgia, being separated from Lune, Savannah spinelight, liquor, plain water, wild ocean, most herbs, wishful thinking, flowers, and violence.
Seen with: His coterie peers - one of Hightower culture’s fundamental social units, somewhere between sorority, siblings, salon, and tiny political party - a few members of the law ship’s crew, and in Sever’s vicinity whenever possible.
Part of the garrison of the Lunic quarter, a collection of necessary workers, eccentric influence-chasers, and political refugees that make up a minor bulk of Savannah’s human population. Rain belongs to all three of these groups simultaneously. Having grown up in the middle circles of Hightower’s petty nobility, he’s idolized Sever Malice for years but wasn’t quite high up enough in the hierarchy to be able to pursue a similar career in architecture, and instead specialized in the vast works of engineering that support and construct habitats. Accustomed in his bones to luxury, but doesn’t depend on it, and can build his own in most places. Careful and reckless in equal measure, easily trusting and easily slighted, has issues with commitment and a very unexamined sense of justice.
Minak
Birthday: Unrecorded; presumably summer 2655
Sex: Blue
Occupation: Ward
Blood Type: 02-K
Likes: Carpentry, tanning, chemistry, glasswork, orchardry, basil, sugarcane, tapioca, human literature, bowering season (very rare for a Quay citizen), endurance flying sport, rooms-tales, and summer.
Dislikes: Intoxication of any kind, sleeping, metalwork, eir birthplace, swimming, operating in unweight (when it isn’t the heights of open sky), strict schedules, work where teamwork isn’t optional.
Seen with: Emelry, the outer edges of Kali’s circle, and a ridiculous amount of random acquaintances
A young but definitively adult bird who hasn’t quite found eir place in the city they love. A fervent but rather distant admirer of Kali, has only recently begun to make inroads in the grave court, which is eir newest focus after a short but full lifetime of hopping from apprenticeship to apprenticeship. Passionate but noncommital, a born jack of all trades always convinced that eir current interest is eir final. Widely known in the city of Quay, if for nothing else how widely e travels it. In everybody’s business as if it’s perfectly natural, no nosiness at all, simple this urge to always be on the first page of things, show up first, be involved - but e never seems to stick around. Most recently, having caught news of the upcoming audit, has been almost recklessly determined to be a part of first contact, and has spent half their adult life preparing for it. Emelry is someone who e has been waiting for a very long time, and e is particularly clingy towards and eager to impress her. Despite eir outward frivolity, is deeply committed to the project of the city and one of Kali’s truest believers - much of eir exploration and flitting from job to job has been an intentional effort to cultivate as many skills as e can that, in this era, are still unique to the city among all tengmunnin.
Anahit Lyly
Birthday: September 23rd
Sex: Female
Occupation: Ilian haruspex, speaker role
Blood Type: O
Likes: Chocolate ceremony, paleontology, Ilian township design, the comfort of taking things for granted, the pride of living up to her role, jewelry, boiling hot showers twice a day, fresh artisan bread
Dislikes: Meat, salty things, loud places, solitude, any kind of light manual labor, any work outside of her role in fact, mining towns, travel, people too self-indulgent about their hobbies, thieves, clumsy liars
Seen with: The rest of her lawship crew, and Kuryo Redname
A driven and sensitive young woman, and predictably the most religious of the Umihotaru crew: such is the role of a speaker, a priest to priests. Delicate and naive in many ways, and enjoys being so, as it means she has enough freedom to be that way still. Bubbly and a worrier, strict and kind, a gentle heart for a gentle age. Is harder than she lets on, though, and under the right circumstanced of enough stress, buckles down into a no-nonsense hypercompetence, revealing all her good-student performative studiousness to be an almost scary dedication to her craft and brittle belief in her organization’s principles. However, this same keen ability also makes her reckless and unmoored, unable to cling to things usually crucial to her. Longtime best friend of Emelry; were educated in the same year and were very close all throughout academy, and much of their study and practice were done together. By a large margin, they were the two people closest to each other before assignment to the crew, and are accustomed to working as a unit and covering each others’ weaknesses. Deeply devout and devoted to all the minutiae of orthodox Ecumene thought and can be quite a stickler about the party line; eternally overawed by authority until it isn’t what she expected of it.
Kuryo Redname
Birthday: January 3rd
Sex: Female
Occupation: Chief of Sales and Inventory, Savannah Staff
Blood Type: Unknown
Likes: People who are simplistic or naive, the smell of ozone, all fellow rejects, friendship over alliance, Triactian ambition in theory more than practice, veal, insect-based foods, fruits that no longer exist
Dislikes: Cooked food, distilled water, large windows, open spaces, loud people, people who remind her of herself, pride and conviction, the bulk of See orthodox thought, Quay and Quarry both, being made to articulate herself
Seen with: Anahit Lyly, and occasional staff meetings - otherwise, extremely reclusive.
A refugee from a destroyed habitat - Heartpage, once located in distant oortspace, and one of the last remaining human settlements living entirely outside of the Ecumene of Heath. Once discovered and recontacted, the denizens of Heartpage were forcibly evacuated and the habitat itself annihilated by a focused sunbeam in a rarely-used process called glorification - meant to purify local space of any anti-ecumenical spirit networks that had taken root in a habitat. Kuryo chose the furthest place from the sun she could find after this event, seeking refuge in a Savannah of decades ago whose leadership was already quite divergent from Solar orthodoxy. Has climbed the ranks to Director of Sales - usually, a very high-ranking and prestigious role supervising diplomacy and trade, but a rather obsolete one given Savannah’s long-term isolation. Secretly, her true calling is as a devoted partisan of the tengmunnin who live in the full third of the habitat that falls outside the purview of the two primary crow cultures, Quay and Quarry, to whom she considers herself the only real ally. Her history here is mysterious, but she has presumably spent a very long time interacting with the unaffiliated tengmunnin via a personal long-range drone she keeps stationed on the surface - and was serious enough about these relationships to mourn a tengmu friend in the same way the grave tree does the dead of Quay. Recently and very unexpectedly, has managed to win the very orthodox and suspicious Anahit over to her side, for purposes still unknown.